Ritty
by Anataria
Summary: Odd little ignoring-Reichenbach  'or fast forwarding after it'  fic I started in December.  Posting for a friend to read.


Posting this for a friend to read over the web. Maybe someone else will enjoy it? I'm trying to learn to be a better writer, but it seems to depend so much on this damned muse!

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><p>Everything has layers. Nothing is ever simple.<p>

There's two reason trite sayings stick around and become trite. It's because they work, they're decently accurate, and most people are so incredibly dull and uninventive they simply reuse what they heard previously.

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><p>The time he wanted to escape from ordinary people and he was dodging Mycroft forcing him back into university, he dove into homeless society. Moreso than the military, immigrants, or the mentally ill, the homeless had a different society that was functional and self supporting, mostly united, completely shunned by 'normal' persons and not caring what others thought of them. Very interesting elements, starkly different logic.<p>

He hadn't gone looking for an examination this time. It seemed to have found him, even at his busiest. Now, though, he couldn't do much physically and his memory was shot, so he allowed himself to relax into the siezures, adapt to the vertigo and loss of concrete perspective, and observe.

Watson had shot someone.

He had been taken somewhere.

He was under the influence of a drug that had entered his system with it had been thrown from a quasi-factory table into his face. Immidiate absorption thorugh nose, eyes, sweat glands, ears.

John was safe. That, really, was the important part.

Pressure on numb cheek and neck. And bottom.

He opened his eyes. Someone, small and blond, was helping him sit up, putting a cup to his lips.

Groggy, muffled speech.

He drank it. It tasted like plain, cool water from a city tap.

The being set down didn't jostle too much, which was good. Otherwise he would possibly have reached the vomiting threshold from his wooziness.

He did manage to keep his eyes open and roll his head to the side, to watch her roll his sleeve up and set up an IV. Hair pinned back, face shield, arm swabbed with clear. Alcohol, judging by the smell. Sterile packaging for needle, tubing. The IV liquid was standard. Movements practiced, confident. It went in, not that he felt it over all the other needle pricks covering his body.

He seized again.

He was caught, loosely, and allowed to flail.

Couldn't keep track of how long the seizure lasted. Fatigue followed.

An injection into the IV. Another. Each caused increasing lucidity, ability to remember, decreasing pain and twitching.

Relieved at the increase in control, he sighed.

This was a mattress he lay on. It had a plastic sheet, shiny. The ceiling was high, crisscrossed with rusted steel reinforcing beams. White light. Daylight, cloudy day. It was day, not raining, and he was in a warehouse, factory type building that had been vacated and repurposed. Second floor or higher, judging from the brightness of the light. If, though, he was still in central London.

It had started before dawn, what they had gone to do. Attend a bust on a criminal organization involved in the regular drugs, prostitution, kidnapping, blackmail, some interesting murder-for-hire but all fairly mundane. The bust hadn't been they're part, they had gone in to look at all the remarkable bits. Sherlock had just gotten too curious and rushed in.

He'd had the drugs thrown in his face, then was being taken off by a few retreating people, John shot someone, more being carried and running, then someone tossed him in a trunk. Very patchy, dazed memories.

Heroin? No, he'd be dead, had he accidentally snorted that much heroin. Some other depressant. Coke. Ah, the irony. Poisoned by his favorite drug after cleaning up.

Hands pressed his cheeks. His eyes had been closed again. Almost-coherent voice.

Another injection added to the IV line, same yellowed-plasma color with a hint of red. Nice of whomever, not to punch him all full of needle holes and be sloppy. Druggies did tend to appreciate clean veins more than nurses, though.

Smelled like fresh concrete, a touch of sweat, milk, and cheap soap. A waft of cool meat-agar smell.

The mattress was flat on the floor. New bag of IV solution, same line used, it was hung from a chair. She knelt on the floor to take care of him.

Oh, please, no, not-

"Stop whining at me. You need the flushing and you're not well enough for a bedpan."

John couldn't even get him to not whine at something like this. Catheters were horrible. Painful, vaguely sexually stimulating yet humiliating, inhuman, uncomfortable. The line was adjusted to run under his knee.

Cold. Sweating, chills, shaking a little.

She tucked blankets around him. Real blankets, but rough and cheap. 3 pound knitted atrocities made of rough, synthetic fibers. They stopped the feeling cold, but not the shivers.

Another IV bag. Another shot. Temperature taken.

"It's almost out of you. You should be enjoying this part," she grimly laughed.

He was high. Not blissfully, serenely high like heroin, but the blankets felt more like lambswool swaddling and he felt less dizzy and more floating, even while the feeling cold returned.

The catheter bag was changed. He'd already produced two liters of urine, pale but no doubt full of drugs. Probably enough to dose a few people.

Pain was all but gone, trembling similar. Cold, most likely due to the rate of 72* IV liquid entering his body, was bearable. He slowly sat up, careful not to bend his IV arm or wiggle the catheter line.

She looked over at him from one of the shelves lining this sunny portion of the warehouse.

"Don't go anywhere. I'm not done flushing you." Selecting something, she approached.

The shelves were full of medical and chemical equipment.

"Any salt cravings?"

At the appearance of several packets of pickle and lemon salt, his mouth watered. "Yes."

"Good."

She was kind enough to open the packets for him.

The addition of salt, potassium, and vinegar did seem to help him recover very quickly from then on. Fifteen miniutes later, she expectantly sat beside him. "You should be good. How's your reactions and pain? You should still be coming down."

"I can control my movements well enough." He glared at her, sideways, and keeping the blankets over his lap pulled the catheter out and handed the end of the tube to her.

She smirked and disposed of it. "You're going to help me, now."

"What makes you think that?"

"Blackmail and the fact that I saved your life. More the blackmail." She cattily smiled at him. "Your dear friend is under investigation for shooting during this raid. What would happen if it got out this wasn't the first time he killed?"  
>"What do you want?"<p>

"My baby was kidnapped during the raid-"

"A matter for social services." He handed her the similairly-removed IV.

"By one of the top men in the gang."

He fastened his pants and stood. "My shoes?"

"Pinched. I am sorry."

"Only because you think I'm on your side."

"You really are a bastard. You're a genius, though, and I need you to find Weeky. He's been gone seven hours, now. They want me to hand over something I can't."

"Just pay them."

This was exactly what he wanted to see. The resources and layout of hideouts. Where they were getting their things, how they were using them.

The hospital had been impressive enough, obviously stolen and legally purchased items on shelves stolen from government clinics, but the rest of the floor seemed to be a home. A kitchen area, with pantry cupboards for walls. All the living spaces were walled by shelves, cabinets, cupboards. Factory made rugs covered the floors- some salvaged, some purchased new.

"It's not money or drugs. They want me, my tech and service." She guestured back down the center cooridor at the medical area they had left. "They want me to patch up their junkies and whores. I never had to, before."

"Who is the baby's father?"

"I don't know."

"Don't bother sounding angry about it. It doesn't work with me. Who was keeping you out of the gritty part of the operation?" He leaned into the next section, one with a door.

A nursery and living space, complete with heater, couch, crib, rugs, television, and overhead paneling to keep warmth in.

"My brother. He's one of the heads."

"Arrested?"

"Your friend shot him. He's as dead as I knew this would all get him one day." She stared at Sherlock. "My baby is hungry, Mr. Holmes. They'll throw him away if he isn't rescued."

"They'll just come kidnap you and make you work unwillingly."

"They have no idea where I am. My brother had private hideouts, for himself, and for me and Weeky. No one knows where this is except the people I've helped, and they want to stay on my good side. They won't narc." Impatient, she uncrossed her arms and caught his sleeve. "I videotaped you, screaming like a liunatic while you were out. I know enough to have someone prove Doctor Watson shot the serial killing cabbie with his service pistol, even if you did change the barrel scrapes so the bullets wont' match. He'll lose his gun liscense and won't be able to carry a piece for you, even if you get him off the murder rack."

She had the odd combination of desperation and knowing she could make him do what she wanted. It showed in the set of her mouth. She was just pushing one button at a time, waiting for him to finally respond to one.

"You're a former drug user. You can come to me if you ever start again and need help with an OD or something."

"Not good enough."

"That drug dose is going to make you go through withdrawals. I can ease them for you. I can send you home with exactly what you need to deal with it. I'll even calibrate it for your weight and metabolism."

He scoffed. "Methodone? That wasn't heroin."

"You idiot, if that'd been heroin-"

"I would be dead," he bit, halting to glare at her. "Don't call me an idiot."

"You made a fool's assumption, twice over. That was some crack that was in the middle of processing, and methodone isn't the only weaning drug," she sneered right back. "I was also offering you a drug I made, one that makes you happy, speeds you up like cocaine, and isn't addictive. It's a good distraction from an established addiction. Take the package, my silence and treatment for what you were exposed to, or I'm going to the cops."

She brightened as soon as he accepted and began telling him everything she knew about that branch of the organization and their hideout while she packed two bags and a first aid box.

"You doan' look so right."

Sherlock forced himself to look very upset, tearing a little, as thug #1 (actually the sixth he'd seen so far) poked his shoulder with a gun that was in such a sorry state it was doubtful it could fire. All grimy, sweet wrapper stuck in the slide. "I _told_ you, Spork sent for me! I babysit, sometimes, and he told someone to call me and have me bring my things. See?" He opened the nappy bag Ritty had picked up at a thrift store. Properly aged, and inexpensive. "Nappies, wipes, formula, teething ring, jammies, socks-"

"Go in. Kid's in the back, just follow th' cryin'." Thug #2 waved him in, nose wrinkled at the outfit.

A pair of Ritty's tight jeans, a new purple sequined thong with the straps up tight, neon green muscle shirt, and his own black silk shirt unbuttoned over it.

The inside of this place was more a dank crackhouse. Food wrappers, used needles, foul couches everywhere and no good lightbulbs. He carefully stepped around by the light of a few candles, making sure not to make eye contact with the junkies hovering over them. No time for echoes.

He was pointed, with relief, by various men at a back, second floor room. Inside, an infant shared a mattress with someone still flying off their last hit, ignorant of the baby's cries.

While thug number 14 watched, anxiously, through the door and thought about his own abandoned child, Sherlock carefully picked him up and pulled out a bottle.

"There you go, poor little sweetie. Shame on you oafs, forgettin' t' feed th' little guy," he sang. As soon as he popped the lid off it, the kid had all but dove for the bottle, sucking so hard the sides were caving in. When it was gone, he called 14. "Here, I need you to hold him. He's so hungry! Just let me make more for the sweetums."

Sixty milliliters water, one level scoop formula, shake thoroughly.

He took the baby back from the man, now considering how much money it would take to give his ex so he could see his son, and let the kid take the bottle. "You stink, messmaker."

Unbarred window that looked just over a neighboring complex's wide brick wall. "Hey, the smell's just gonna get worse when I start changing him," he sang, emphatically twitching his head at the door.

"Oh, okay. Yer a real dear." With a smile, 14 shut the door.

Full baby, check. Cab waiting nearby, John hopefully en route to meet him. Squirting leftover milk on the metal window frame, he eased it open. With the baby held like a football, he sat on the windowsill, aimed, and jumped.

Tiny hands patting his chin assured him the child was fine.

He jumped again, down on the other side of the fence on a sidewalk, and started walking through the somewhat scuzzy apartment complex. He was now out of sight of the townhouse gang den, and headed for the cab waiting a block away.

"Hey! Hey, ease up!"

Continue walking, do not change anything.

"Oh, doan' be like tha! I got what you're cravin' right here, taffy boy. What's thirty quid say you n' me go compare piercings?"

He smiled, 'unhappily', at the local. "Not 'til after six, 'm 'fraid. I gotta go take th' rentmaker back t' his house. I'll be back 'bout nine?"

"Doan' primp too long! I be waitin' fo' ya!"

He slipped into the waiting taxi. "Hyde Park, please."

"It's always th' one with th' dirty baby," the driver sighed, taking off.

He looked down at the drooling, sleepy baby and pulled out his cell phone. 'En route. Have baby. Appears unharmed.'

'Baby boy, birthmark on L ankle?'

Eye roll. Maternal instinct was a hormonal paranoia agent.

"There you are! Wha- What's the deal? You were kidnapped this morning! Now you're dressed gay!" Somehow still surprised, John stared at him. "You had a handful of coke thrown in your face, how are you walking?"

"I was kidnapped from my kidnappers by a woman who treated my overdose of coke in return for getting her kidnapped infant back."

"And you did that by acting gay," Donovan slowly stated, seemingly unable to take her eyes off the glaring, sequined purple thong of death.

The sound of a camera phone made Sherlock spun about, searching for the source. Lestrade smirked. "I'm sorry, Sherlock, that picture is too damn perfect!"

"Juvinile. I assembled a fantastic costume from a woman's wardrobe and fiveL of things from a thrift store."

Anderson extruded quite a bit of joy from that. "It's fantastic, alright!"


End file.
